Daughter Dearest and I were watching the news this evening. There was yet another story about obesity. One of those things where they show video clips of anonymous rear ends and bellies, all on the far side o’plump.
Daughter Dearest (a svelt size 2 if even that) turned to me and wondered what it would be like to flip on the news and see your butt featured in a story about fat people.
I put down my bowl of tortilla chips and pondered the question. Really, WHAT would I do if my tushie was broadcast on network TV as a bad example? And then I realized…I wouldn’t even KNOW! Seriously, I could be watching a story like that, eating my chips and shaking my head about the deplorable state of the nation’s health and NOT KNOW that the particularly jiggly bum I was watching was my own.
Because, aside from an occasional brief glimpse in a three way dressing room mirror, (and who believes them anyway?) I DON’T KNOW what I look like from behind. My eyes face front.
But I do have a fat ass. A hairy one at that. Don’t believe me? Check out the photo.
Her name is Jasmine June. She may be an ass…but she’s also a princess.
I woke up in the middle of the night, dog must’ve woofed or sumthin’. Not a totally unheard of event, living in the country. A lot of distractions going on outside in the big woods. Four legged distractions. Sophie in particular fancies herself a watchdog. Twelve pounds of Maltipoo vs. the wild beasts.
Bean tends to sleep through it all. Most nights I roll over, stuff a pillow over my head and go back to sleep.
But last night was different. I was in the middle of a dream. And there was a blowtorch involved. Which meant I was making art, doing the encaustic dance in my sleep.
I lay there thinking about that. About sleep as a means of recharging and refreshing and yet here I was carrying on the activities of the day on a whole ‘nother level.
As I write this many hours later, I have no memory of the the dream itself, of the content. But I still see the image I woke up with, the torch in my hand, the flame on the wax.
And I’m thinking it’s a good thing I don’t sleepwalk. And if I ever did, there’s a couple of locked doors and a gauntlet of wild beasties between me and that torch.
Or, What if They Gave a Wedding and Somebody ATE the Bride???
I’m sitting here at the kitchen table doing my best to tune out the mayhem in the living room. I. Do. NOT. Want. To. Know…the details.
Sophie caught a mouse tonight. THE mouse. The one that’s been getting into everything. Pooping on the kitchen counter. Pooping pooping POOPING EVERYWHERE. Gnawing on everything gnawable. And some things that aren’t gnawable. And pooping that stuff out too.
I was doing the dinner dishes when I saw her (yes, Miss Mousie is a her because I have declared it so) I saw her out of the corner of my eye, a dark shadow racing from the pantry to the fridge. I yelled and stomped and made scary human noises because I just want her to go away, go outside . I will even feed her outside, make a nice warm nest for her if she will only go THERE and not HERE.
But she didn’t listen. She went back to the pantry where Sophie cornered her behind the (rodent proof) dog food containers. I saw her cowering there and all my mom instincts kicked in. I WANTED TO SAVE HER!!! And then Sophie made a move and Miss Mousie made a move right towards me and I did what they do in the movies–what they do in the cartoons–I jumped out of the way and SCREAMED.
Screamed like a girl.
Then I ran out of the pantry. There was a scuffle behind me. When I turned to look, Sophie was standing there with a tail hanging out of her mouth.
It was not her tail.
She trotted off to the living room, growling at anyone who came near. Growling with her mouth full. With a hairless little tail dangling beneath her chin. This was her first kill and she was not going to share. She spit her prize out by the sofa and that’s when I realized the poor thing was still alive.
Oh crap.
I grabbed some paper towels thinking I’d catch Miss Mousie and take her outside so she could die in peace, carried off from this world (this harsh, cruel world) on the wings of mouse angels.
Because surely she was dying, right?
What the hell do I know… Next to nothing about revival of the fittest. EFFING RODENT made a spontaneous recovery and a successful dash for the safety of under-the-sofa-land. Sophie is beside herself. No matter how much she tries, Sophie can’t fit under the sofa.
But she can bark at it. And growl. And make scrabbling sounds on the wood floor as she scurries from one end to the other. She’s been doing that for, oh, a good two hours now. Won’t even stop for her pre-bed potty break…which is not a good thing.
I can handle a puppy potty accident, lord knows it wouldn’t be the first.
But I really–I mean REALLY–don’t want to wake up with a dead mouse in my bed. Or worse–a live one.
These are the trees around my house. Ponderosa Pine. And yes, they are as big as they look. Bigger, even. I mean, they’re huge. Positively enormous. Makes you dizzy just looking up. And up. And up and up and up because there’s a gazillion of ’em on our property alone. So many trees you can’t even count that high. Because we are surrounded by the Tahoe National Forest. In other words, we live in the deep, dark…woods.
As do lions and tigers and bears, oh my!
Okay, no tigers. But mountain lions, yes. Bears, you betcha. In fact once upon a time Bubba (best dog EVER, R.I.P.) sent one scurrying up that middle tree. Yes, that one right there. Bears, or at least this one, can leap tall buildings trees with a single bound. But this wasn’t your run of the mill tall tree, this was a gigundo Ponderosa. Took that bear three clumps till he reached the top.
I know because I was there. Way, I mean way, too close. I could’ve reached out and touched Mr. Bear as he raced by. You would race like that too, if Bubba was snapping and snarling on your tail. Check him out down below. Ferocious dog, eh?
Yep, here he is with his girl a few years back. No greater love hath a child than the dog they grew up with.
But back to the woods. And the critters. An interesting assortment we have here. Besides the native wildlife we have monkeys. Uh-huh. Do too. Just ask Ingrid, my niece. We’ve even gone monkey hunting on my property, she and I. Didn’t catch any monkeys but we saw some monkey nests and that’s almost as good.
And we have UNICORNS! Yes we do, Ingrid says so. Here they are, right here.
Wheew, well I think that’s enough excitement for now. Unless you’ve got some critter encounters you’d like to share. Anybody?
